Ten Years Gone
by Courtney Belle
Summary: COMPLETE. Peyton Sawyer is good with the surviving...now she is going to take care of the living.


**Author's Note: **Wow...I wrote this a while back while trying to work through some pretty vicious writer's block, and totally forgot about it. I'm happy I stumbled on it, because I'm really happy with how it turned out, and now you get to read it and decide if you feel the same way!

You might remember Ellie telling Peyton that "Ten Years Gone" is the saddest song ever. That's why I chose it to work as the title of this story, because Peyton is pretty damn sad at this moment in her life, and I can almost picture her listening to it on the record player while she thinks these things through. It also applies to the length of her friendship with Brooke. They were best friends for ten years, survived two dead moms, three absentee parents, shoplifting, and jail time... and now it's over because of one boy.

If you have the song, maybe flip it on while you read this, to help set the mood.

P.S. "Many Rivers to Cross" readers, if you're reading this...yes, I stumbled on it while writing up chapter four of MRTC. It's coming speedy quick!

**Disclaimer:** All characters mentioned were created by Mark Schwahn. They are his creative property; I'm just messing around with their lives.

Robert Plant once wrote:  
_"Changes fill my time.  
Baby, that's all right with me.  
In the midst, I think of you and how it used to be."_

**Ten Years Gone **

Gone.

Ten years.

The words weighed heavily on Peyton's mind as she stood up from her bed and went to the hallway. She had some ridiculous hope that Brooke would change her mind and come back to talk, that the two of them could patch things up over some much needed chocolate. Peyton would swear to the moon and back that even though she had all these really confusing and mostly unwanted feelings for Lucas Scott, she would _never_ act on them. Brooke would smile through her tears and they would hug, and everything would be all right again, no catfights, no mind games, no _feelings_ for her best friend's boyfriend. All she wanted to do was get rid of those _stupid_ feelings, so when she went back to Jake, she could _be with Jake_. Just Jake. No Lucas, no best friend death wish love triangle, no Tree Hill drama. Just Jake, and Jenny, and her. She wanted that family more than anything, especially Lucas.

Because she didn't _want_ Lucas, she loved him. In Peyton's mind, that made all the difference.

The hallway was, of course, empty, so she turned back into her room and sank back down on the bed. Twice she had managed to ruin her friendship with Brooke, all because of one boy who wasn't even that special. Sure, he could play basketball really well, and he lent her books with not-so-subtly underlined phrases that related to her alone, and he threw his head back whenever he thought something was _really_ funny, and he had a bad habit of stealing food from other people, making merciless fun of their haircut, and yes, he was an amazing kisser, but...

Peyton groaned and rolled on her stomach. Why couldn't she get him out of her head? _Jake_. All those months of angsting over him and their short-lived romance, all those weeks of feeling her heart stop every time she heard the front door open, all those days of breaking into tears in the shower because she missed him _so much_...all of that meant something. It meant that she needed him, that her life somehow seemed _less_ when he wasn't in it. He added all this sunshine and weight and happiness and confusion and laughter and pride and...everything under the sun. His goofy smile, the way he always scratched his nose when he was nervous, and that song he had written for her. "Someday".

Why did "Someday" have to be so far away?

Who knew how long it would take to get Lucas out of her head?

What would it take to even _do_ that?

Where would Jake be when she finally did? Would he still be in a place where they could be together?

When would he move on and find another girl, one who wasn't so indecisive and _stupid_?

Why? Why did she have to feel this way about Lucas?

They had hung out all summer, talking late into the night, trading CDs, laughing, discussing, playing...they had been _friends_. If Haley could do all those things with him, not just for a summer but for their whole lives, and not develop these feelings for him, then why couldn't _she_? Then again, maybe Haley had liked Lucas like this at some point...she didn't know. The point was, she could still do all that stuff with him now that she was married to Nathan and in love with him, and _she_ didn't start fantasizing about his lips on hers, or remembering stolen kisses in the library, in his room, needy groping in a motel room...

Okay, so, Haley had never done any of _that_ with Lucas, but she could have fantasized about something else at _some_ point.

But she didn't anymore.

If she ever had.

_So why do I?! _

Maybe she did want Lucas. But not the same way she wanted Jake. Well...okay, yes, the same way she wanted Jake, but not...not the same _degree. _

When Peyton thought of Jake, she thought of warmth, of safety, of cozy nights, holding Jenny in her arms and letting her play with her hair. She thought of feeling truly _happy_ for the first time since her mother died. The affair with Lucas hadn't been happy. It had been secretive, dangerous, sexy, intoxicating. It had taken up every corner of her senses with its allure, until Brooke snapped her back to reality. Then she had felt dirty. Unworthy.

But she had never felt that way with Jake. She had felt loved, secure, like she _belonged_.

_Then_ why_ do you love Lucas? Can't you ever just be _satisfied?

Then it hit her.

No. She could not ever just be "satisfied". Did part of her miss that passion and dirtiness she had experienced with Lucas? Maybe part of her wanted to feel like she was doing something wrong just because she _wanted_ to. She wanted to feel wrong, because part of her knew, somewhere deep inside, that whatever she had with Lucas would never be long term. It just didn't...feel that way. There were things she just knew, like she would always get a weird look for her Loretta Lynn fetish, her moms were dead, her dad couldn't sing on key to save his life, nothing good ever came on television, and she and Lucas would never grow up, get married, have five kids, and grow old together in a big house with a picket-fence.

And she knew why, too.

They were too _alike_.

Stuff they disagreed on never had anything to do with the other one's personality. Their fights were all of the I-slept-with-a-random-bar-slut-who-happens-to-be-the-same-slut-that-abandoned-Jake-and-Jenny-and-I'm-sorry-I-didn't-tell-you-in-person-but-I'm-moving-away-forever variety. And, quite frankly, being near him was far too emotionally draining. She felt so empathetic for him that it was almost like everything he felt or thought, she felt and thought it two fold. They were so _deep_ that she wondered if she could ever be with him without drowning, and not in the good our-love-is-wonderful-I-never-want-to-leave-your-wonderful-glow way.

Peyton didn't want to drown.

So, for the millionth time since she had left Savannah, Jake, and Jenny behind, she asked herself.

_Why do I love Lucas? _

Maybe she would never know. In fact, maybe she wasn't _meant_ to know.

Maybe they were supposed to be together because they were so alike.

When her eyes accidentally met his, Peyton couldn't deny the way her heart skipped a beat, or the way her skin tingled whenever their hands brushed.

And maybe they would somehow grow out of who they were now. They would mature as they got older, naturally, and maybe the people they matured into would be different enough from each other that they _could_ be together forever. They wouldn't have to drown, because they would pull each other out of the water. Maybe the desire that made her feel so bad, maybe that would be _fulfilled_.

Maybe "Someday", she could look Lucas in the eye and tell him she was _in love_ with him. Not while she was bleeding, dying, in trouble, having an emotional crises, suffering, fighting with someone, feeling the harshness of life...not while she felt like she had to say it just to hold onto him. She could say it simply one day, maybe a sunny one, and he would smile at her and tell her that he was in love with her too.

Did she really want to risk _never_ finding out?

_No_, she decided, pushing herself off the bed. _I'm good with the surviving. Now I'm gonna work on the living._


End file.
